In very poor countries, inequality often means that a small part of the population maintains living standards far above the rest. This is also true for educational inequality in Mozambique: only a small segment of the population has access to higher levels of education (there are 30 times as...

This paper puts sub-Saharan Africa's economic development into perspective. While much did not go as hoped for at independence, much of the region has been on a more promising development trajectory since the mid-1990s, as we illustrate using growth, poverty, and human development indicators. We...

The majority of the world's poor, by income poverty and multi-dimensional poverty, now live in countries officially classified by the World Bank as middle-income countries. Of course nothing happens when a country crosses a (somewhat) arbitrary threshold in per capita income but it does matter...

This paper argues that attempts at state-building in Afghanistan have led to institutions that are not robust. The state institutions and organizations continue to be highly dependent on external resources and technical expertise, and lack of critical mass of people able and willing to maintain...

Africa has come a long way since the economic turmoil of the 1980s, the decade of "structural adjustment". Growth has been strong, yet poverty remains high. Underlying the shortage of good livelihoods and high social inequality is the lack of diversification in Africa's economies-in contrast to...